


the Shape of an Unrestful Dream

by helo572



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Colors, Dreams, Dreamscapes, F/M, Overwatch Recall, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Stream of Consciousness, Symbolism, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 03:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8952106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helo572/pseuds/helo572
Summary: Coming home to silence is a change Angela still has to get used to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for a secret santa gift for the Emergenji discord server! I hope you enjoy your fic Ret <3

Life slows down without the constant presence of white and orange. Angela only finds it in the snow which touches the streets each Christmas as she treks the path around the  _ Rade de Genève _ . After all, she started her life in Switzerland, with Overwatch, and it is only fitting it finished there in fire -- an explosion which tears through the night sky mid-conference, singing any and all hope it had at redeeming itself. Years ago, now, a bad memory for most residents of the city which woke their peaceful slumbers.

 

Now, Overwatch is gone, _she_ is simply Dr Angela Ziegler, MD. Not Angie, not half-flirtatious winks from Jesse McCree, not her Valkyrie suit. Not a hero. Although, she still feels like one as she saves lives with knives and scalpels, or stitches and bandages, or a set of kinds word and a pat on the shoulder. It’s still not enough to fill the void her life becomes without Overwatch, not enough to send her to bed smiling, with that feeling nestling in her chest she’s doing something  _ good _ .

 

She saves lives in a blue coat like the nurse’s scrubs, not a white one, a shade that accompanies her into her dreams. It’s the same color as the sky, the color of Winston’s telsa cannon, the color of Jack Morrison’s eyes. Angela dreams with the curtains drawn and Swiss skyline silent through the winds of the early hours of the morning.

 

The silence reminds her of them, the gaps in her life Overwatch used to fill. It never was quiet, always ripe with life: Athena comfortably humming in the background, or the whir of the generators, or the purr of a transport engine as Lena navigates a tired crew into the Watchpoint.  The colors, the heroism, the people, and the underlying silence. It all follows her into her dreams now, leave her tossing and turning awake at night. 

 

The crisis in Russia grows in severity, a threat amassing on the skyline yet the rest of the world ignores it. Angela feels herself growing frustrated -- the hole in her chest grows encouraged by the snow, the shade of blue she wears, the emptiness of the silence as she lies awake at night. Overwatch sits as a startling gap in the world’s broadcast, widening daily. She sleeps less and less each night, drawing the curtains as far as she can. They are green; do nothing to block out the Swiss sun as it filters through her bedroom winter.

 

The cherry blossoms do, pink and soft, they slowly begin to filter through her dreams like a light haze from the trees overhead. The first night, it’s just the whisper of them across the ground, until they grow each passing day to be tender across the backs of her closed lids. A soothing presence as she breathes, looking out over the cityscape which suddenly spans below. Out in the distance: a mountain stands proudly like a looming guardian.

 

The wind stirs at the trees where she stands, perched on the edge of a balcony. Angela’s eyes are drawn to down below, balanced precariously on the edge. There’s Genji Shimada, green visor covering his face, chin bowed in concentration. From where she stands, it’s the mountain framing him against the skyline, painting him one and the same with the protector that watches over the cityscape.

His scarf dances on the wind, caught in the breeze. It’s like a movement of yellow waves behind him. Angela watches, mesmerised. Genji makes no move to acknowledge her; she is simply a keen observer, touched down here in her dreams. She’s in Hanamura, another explanation for Genji’s appearance, a place she has only been to a select few times. Yet, the scenery around her is vivid. The cherry blossoms, especially, and Genji is he sits meditating on the skyline.

 

Dreams are filled with the soft green of her pulled curtains for the next few weeks as Christmas approaches, the snow falls from in the sky in gentle waves, the sun flashes briefly orange in the sky before being smothered by the winter clouds. Genji helps her sleep, just  _ there _ at the back of her mind while she dreams, or a robotic presence at her elbow as she operates, making her question if she’s awake or asleep.

 

Limbo is a funny thing, really. That’s what it is, after all - the gap in her life Overwatch used to fill, Angela Ziegler hovers in her memories in an attempt to keep it there.

 

It progresses after that - Genji appears again and again, until eventually one dream she’s hovering between the cherry blossoms, and he raises his meditating head to look straight at her. She doesn’t notice at her, not until the eeriness creeps up her spine and nearly shakes her awake. He’s still sitting, still against the skyline, but now that green visor she fitted watches her.

 

“Genji,” she says, softly, the first words she has spoken to him - apparently, no longer a floating presence between the flowers.

 

That’s when she wakes, the first streams of sunlight filtering between the curtains. He watches her again after that, the next night and the next, until it’s customary to have that green visor follow her around as she walks the courtyard in a sleepy haze. Angela does spare thoughts occasionally, about how this is likely to mean something -- the cherry blossoms, Genji, the green faceplate which follows her as she weaves between the falling petals.

 

Christmas hits with a mountain of snow, she still dreams, works in her blue coat, wonders how big this void is to grow for her to endlessly dream about the space and people she misses so greatly. The crisis in Russia spreads, there are whispers of white and orange in the news, of heroes and great things, it’s all Angela has to get to sleep that night with anticipation on her tongue.

 

Genji is there, as well, the soft flowers which litter the air. She stands there as always, perched on the edge of the skyline with the mountain in the distance. The balcony breeds a cool breeze, even colder than the metal finger which suddenly brushes her cheek. He is suddenly  _ there _ , even more so, standing next to her as she looks out over the balcony railing. A soft finger on her cheek and she’s mesmerized, eyes wide and lips blown as they stand here together in the comfort of her dreams.

 

“Angela,” he says, and she breathes, lets her eyes fall closed as his fingers wash over her cheek. When she opens them again, she is staring at her ceiling, swirling patterns which disappear into the darkness of the night. It’s still very early, but she cannot sleep now, not with his touch still lingering on her skin.

 

It happens quickly from now on: her skin is cold like the snow under her shoes and the touch of Genji’s synthetic hand, the Russian crisis is announced as a war, Overwatch’s name is mentioned on the news in the break room at the hospital. She doesn’t sleep that night: the snow haunts her, as does the memory of the sun when it rises. She has a shower, wipes her eyes, and goes to work.

 

It’s a double shift; she naps in the middle, golden hair pooling across the arm of the chair where she rests in her office. Dreams don’t chase her straight away, and neither do the cherry blossoms when she settles into the scape she’s used to. It’s still Hanumara but it’s bare with the winter: snow rakes up into corners on the balcony, litters the ground and makes her tread carefully as she hugs herself into her blue coat.

 

It takes her a good few moments to realise Genji is not there, either. The ledge is empty, save the city, the mountain, and Angela hugged there against the skyline. She wanders instead, downstairs into a pavillon, through twists of abandoned buildings and corridors. Her feet carry her to a massive openings spanning a great hall. Her eyes are drawn to it instantly: the dragon mural stretching above her head like it was part of the sky outside, the green and blue dragons dancing around each other in permanently frozen picture.

  
  


The hall itself stretches out high, shelves of balconies and walkways above her head, all spiralling up towards the patched roof. What strikes her most is the haze of orange it all has, brown and red from the decor mixing together to put a veil in front of her eyes as she squints.

 

Then there’s the sudden green contrast at the base of the mural. A shrine, she realises, where swords are balanced precariously in front of a Japanese-scrawled scroll she has no chance of reading. Genji is there, the visor stares at her in the entrance.

 

“Genji,” she calls again, her voice echoing throughout the spiralled walls of the building, seeming to centre in on the man which stands at the base of the shrine. He is unmoving, even at her words. She steps closer, floorboards creaking beneath her white shoes, where it becomes obvious he has one silver hand attached to the handle of his blade. Now at the outskirts of the expansive space of the shine, she freezes, draws her gaze up to the man which stares her down. “Genji? What’s wrong?”

 

He draws his sword slowly, the sound grating against her eardrums. She stops breathing, can only watch as he raises it and-

-rushes straight through her. A cry tears from his throat as he swings his sword, a swoosh in the air that stops her heart. Except, she turns, and there’s nothing there. Genji too has disappeared, it’s just the whisper of the snow across the ground outside, and the orange haze casted across the hall Angela stands in.

She wakes feeling uneasy, to the news her shift is starting in five minutes. The television reads: IS IT TIME FOR THE RETURN OF OUR HEROES? and chops to a shot of the Russian military going arms to arms with a rush of omnic forces. Angela represses a shiver from the cold of Hanamura on her way out of the door, back to the hospital floor.

Winter retreats like the tide of the Swiss sea: slowly but surely, a lick up against the shore as it recedes away. White fades back to green grass and blue sky. Angela dreams no more of Hanamura, of Genji and the mural which stretched out over the expanse of the great hall. It’s weeks, she’s sure she’s lost him forever again even in the expanse of her dreams which fill that hole in her chest Overwatch used to lie -- then she finds him again.

Hanamura hasn’t changed, the time she’s been away. The snow has retreated off the trees, the cherry blossoms slowly find their places back on the branches. The first fallen petals of the break of winter are slippery under her feet as she pads up to the balcony again. She realises, as she climbs the stairs, this time she’s in her Valkyrie suit.

Except, Genji is not there. A lone shuriken instead, embedded into the handrail behind where he used to sit, like a scar against the picture the cityscape paints. Angela eyes it, frowning, fingers hovering across the star as she glances around. It is empty again, hollow here, like when she found him in the dragon hall.

And so she wanders.

The hall is empty again, less orange now without the glare of the now outside, but a harsh reminder all the same. Green and blue still stands out strikely above on the mural, a watchful guardian that chases away her white and orange branded thoughts away. She lets herself walk inside this time, eyes cast to the dragons which watch her hesitant steps, aware of how her white heels click on the wooden floor.

Eerie, still, like the balconies outside. Air rushes past her skirt as a smile slowly starts to creep to her face in knowing -- this was Genji’s home, her thoughts take her here as she longs to fill the silence without her friends. A glance to her left reveals another balcony, shadier this time, and she lets her feet carry her.

She ascends the stairs with graceful steps, eyes cast around, and spares a glance over her shoulder at the dragons. They do not seem to look at her now, and it strikes her suddenly how dark it is up here, how more foreboding it feels without the dragon’s watchful gaze. A shiver up her spine, the artificial wings on her back clink together and she is reminded she is dressed in white, and the castle speaks of orange.

And then there is green, lying still at the base of the balcony. How she didn’t see him sooner is beyond her, sprawled on the wooden ground like a ragdoll.

“Genji!”

He does not react to her shouts, not even when she falls to her knees beside him to set a clinical, and then worrying hand on his shoulder. The dragons do not help her, do not answer her why this is here. Angela knows -- deep down, it is a dream, Genji fills the gaps in her curtains to help her sleep.

Nothing stops the despair which grips her: one, that Genji is  _ gone _ , and two, Overwatch is not right to come back. That second conclusion yells at her now as she glances up, is struck by her juxtaposition against the orange wood she sits on. Genji fades, too, the green dripping from his suit through the floorboards, so that he is nothing more than a silver sliver, lying there motionless; dead on the ground.

The dragons say nothing.

“Genji, Genji -”

Her curtains stir, a rustling noise on the edge of her awareness. The dream slowly trickles, Genji becomes mush underneath her hand settled on his shoulder, the castle fades.

“Genji-”

It is light outside, the clock reads just short of nine o’clock. Angela has not slept this long in months. It is the beeping of a comm, she realises, has disturbed her rest. The comm sits away, tucked in her Overwatch-branded duffle at the top of her shelf, but the noise is piercing through the stillness of her room.

“Genji.” 

She’s to her feet quickly, slippers forgotten, the coldness of the floor not a concern as she races for the top shelf. Her comm is at the bottom of the bag, a cold dish that is flashing an angry orange as her as she pulls it out, from underneath the folded corners of her Valkyrie suit. 

The answer button is hard-pressed, worn with years of use, and she savours the feeling as it connects the call waiting for her on the dead comm. The void fills with each flash of the world on the holo display -- RECALL.

Not Genji.

It is funny, how the void was so easily filled with him, a comfort in her dreams like the cherry blossoms which fell from the sakura trees. Winston tells her the plans for the recall when she comms him later that afternoon, after a long hot shower and walk through the Swiss sunshine, filtering down yellow, orange and red from the white clouds.

“And Genji?” she asks.

The gorilla doesn’t have an answer for her, she is coldly reminded of the dreams which replaced the soft presence of the man -- the attack, then the motionless form she found sprawled on the balcony. He tells her instead, her flights are booked back towards the Gibraltar Watchpoint for next Tuesday morning, and he can arrange official transfers from the hospital.

Angela doesn’t sleep that night, either. The silence of the dragons haunt her, the vastness of the hall, the coldness of Genji’s shoulder as she tried to shake him to life. Unbefitting of a doctor, perhaps even of a friend.

When she does sleep, it’s a doze, to dreams of the operating table, of green hair seizing and eyes scrunched shut and shouting and-

“Angela.”

“... Genji?”

Eyes open to reveal her comm, curled into the palm of her hand, where she sleeps on top of the covers and makes no effort to ward off the chill. It flashes at her again: green. On and off, on and off. CALL CONNECTED, it says.

“I was waiting to hear from you.” She sits up, comm still clutched to her chest as she processes the words she is hearing. That mechanical voice filters through the speakers, cheeky and that little bit sad. She could cry. “I wondered if you had answered the recall, too. I am glad to hear, then, it is time for our paths to join once again.” It washes over her wonderfully, like the cherry blossoms when they first joined her in her dreams, she lets out a disbelieved huff from between her lips.

“Genji.”

A fond noise, robotic. She smiles at the device in her hands. “I have missed you, Angela.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
